While erstwhile scouts lament the potential loss of a place where they slept under the stars, hiked and earned merit badges, environmentalists and scientists say even more will be lost if the prime woodlands are chopped into subdivisions.

The property, which covers 2,200 acres, is located between two growing exurbs and near where Exxon Mobil is building a sprawling corporate campus.

Nearly half of it rests in the floodway of the San Jacinto River, which flows into Lake Houston, the primary water source for millions of people. The wetlands filter and cleanse water, help retain storm waters and offer habitats for many wildlife species.

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"There will be huge ramifications if it is sold for development," said Jennifer Lorenz, who leads the nonprofit Bayou Land Conservancy. "It should be preserved."

The Boy Scouts' Sam Houston Area Council, however, has other ideas, seeking to capitalize on the current market by selling the campground and buying a new one that is not touched by the outward march of one of the nation's largest cities.

Stewards of the land

The age-old conflict between environment and commerce strikes at the core of the venerable boys organization, which encourages scouts to be good stewards of the land but faces an uncertain economic future as it struggles to keep pace with changing times and shifting demographics.

With the sale of Camp Strake, which has an appraised value of nearly $16 million, the council intends to purchase at least 1,000 acres in a less urbanized location. The new camp would be within a two-hour drive of Houston and include modern features, such as a skateboard park and technology center with robotics.

Tom Varnell, president of the Sam Houston Area Council, said the group recognizes Camp Strake's ecological importance, but intends to maximize its value on the market.

"The goal of the sale is to be a good steward, which includes our fiduciary responsibility" to make enough revenue for the purchase, development and maintenance of a "first-class camp in perpetuity," he said.

When wildcatter George Strake Sr. donated the Montgomery County land to the Boy Scouts in 1944, it was surrounded by wilderness. A sign marking the dedication of the camp envisions it as a place where boys "will be inspired by the great outdoors and the handiwork of God which He has provided for their enjoyment."

In time, Camp Strake became an island among houses and highways. Roughly 470,000 people now live in the county, up from 23,000 in the 1940s. The state demographer projects the population reaching 870,000 by 2040.

Conroe annexation

The Sam Houston council estimates that the campground needs more than $5 million in improvements, while the city of Conroe seeks to build a new wastewater treatment plant on part of the property. The city also intends to annex the camp next year, making it part of the tax base while subjecting it to new rules prohibiting the clear-cutting of trees.

Some people with ties to the scouts are worried that the organization is conducting high-intensity logging of the bottomland hardwoods at the camp while the property is on the market.

Wayne Pfluger, a forester who manages the woods at the camp, dismissed the concern, saying drought left many trees dead or dying that had to be removed for the scouts' safety. Also, the forest was thinned to reduce fire hazard.

"Our No. 1 objective is camper safety," he said.

However, Jim Olive, a former camp counselor and now a photographer, took aerial pictures of the property in early December that show holes in the forest canopy and logging roads in areas where scouts rarely, if ever, go. Ghostly gray pines still stand where several other trees had been cut.

"Removing dead trees doesn't wash because so many are left," said Neville Mann, an arborist and board member of the Texas Urban Forestry Council, who reviewed the photographs. "This is not management."

Lorenz, of the Bayou Land Conservancy, said the logging jeopardizes functioning wetlands - and a possible revenue source for the scouts or a future owner. By maintaining the wetlands, the scouts can sell credits to companies or government agencies to compensate for acres they have developed elsewhere. The practice is known as mitigation banking, and Lorenz contends the camp could earn millions of dollars if managed properly.

The benefit is better water quality in the San Jacinto, which already is affected by polluted runoff from houses, parking lots and roads.

Conservation group?

Lake Creek, a tributary near the camp, is one of the cleanest streams in the region, while the San Jacinto's pollution problems increase in the more developed areas of the watershed, said Lisa Gonzalez, a water expert and vice president of the Houston Advanced Research Center.

If the camp is sold and developed, she said, "then water quality issues that we now see in the more developed portions of the watershed could become a regular occurrence in that portion of the San Jacinto River watershed as well."Janice Van Dyke Walden, a member of the Sam Houston council's conservation committee, said she hopes a buyer with an interest in protecting the land will emerge. The council, for example, recently agreed to sell a 965-acre camp in the Hill Country to The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit, which will convey the land to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to be part of an adjacent nature area.

"Camp Strake has an ecological value that is vanishing but worth keeping," Waldensaid. "Unless somebody steps up with a lot of money and sense of responsibility, it will be sold to developers to carve up. Once it's gone, it's gone."